The Band's Visit (2007) User Reviews

Band Visits, You'd Want Them to Stay

[janos451 · 8/10 · 24 January 2008]

In an ocean of predictable movies, "The Band's Visit" is an island of bliss. When you see the advertising about the story of an Egyptian police band getting lost in Israel, you're likely to roll the film instantly in your mind - conflict, hatred, perhaps some awkward humor, and a forced bit or two of vague optimism about the future.

Forget all that, it's some other movie. This one is free and clear of anything set, routine, obvious, predictable. "The Band's Visit" is about people - mostly awkward, all real, well- and ill-behaved in turn - and not about agenda, ideology, politics. It's an unsentimental "people movie" (remember when Hollywood used to churn those out?), enormously likable, a treasurehouse of humanism.

"Visit" is also a film you have to work with. It's not dumped on the audience in its fullness by its writer and (first-time) director, Eran Kolirin. Action is slow or nonexistent, dialogue is halting, silences are rampant. And yet it all works so well: even if you have never heard Egyptian music, when the band finally plays (as the end-credits roll), you're guaranteed to groove on it.

Kolirin is a writer and director of great economy. The characters of and relationships between the eight band members - in their powder blue, Sgt. Pepper-wannabe, uniforms are revealed through a word here, an expression there, and pretty soon, you really know them... except that later you realize you didn't.

The head of the band, Tewfig, is an officious, prissy, downcast, silent figure, and yet as the camera stays on him a great deal of the time, slowly you are getting used to him, and when he finally puts together a couple of full sentences, you may feel acceptance and even appreciation.

It is at this point, far into the movie, that you understand why Dina is pursuing him. Dina is the attractive - if blowsy - owner of a small cafe in the Israeli desert town where the band is stranded. There is much, much more to "Visit," but just watching the Tewfig-Dina story, and reveling in the performances of the two actors, is well worth the price of admission.

The band leader is Sasson Gabal, and I must admit being incredulous finding out after seeing the movie that he is a famous Israeli actor. Not only does he appear authentically Egyptian, but when starts singing an Arabic song - oy! Dina is Ronit Elkabetz, an actor so fine that you'd never suspect her of being one; what you see on the screen is the character, totally believable.

"Visit" is a rare film, one that keeps running in your mind long after the band strikes up.

A touching film about what makes us similar as humans

[guylevi · 9/10 · 6 October 2007]

I liked this movie. As a viewer, I was subjected to a wide range of emotions during this film: joy, frustration, embarrassment, delight and so on.

One must understand that Israel and Egypt had been long time enemies (until the peace agreement in 1979) and that Israeli Jews and Arabs have very different views on so many matters. Within this context the humanity of the film really shines. People of such different backgrounds are basically the same; Same hopes and aspirations, same fears and frustrations etc. The same things make all of us tick.

This film is also about strangers and others. And how we can help one another. The scene with Haled and the Israeli boy and girl in the skating rink is, my opinion, classic.

enjoy

Small but wise

[howard.schumann · 9/10 · 24 February 2008]

A fully uniformed Egyptian police band arrives in Israel to perform at the opening ceremony of a new Arab Cultural Center but no one shows up to meet them at the airport. Lonely and tired, they end up taking the wrong bus, ending up in Bet Hatikvah, a lonely outpost in the Negev that, according to one of its residents, not only doesn't have a cultural center but has no culture. Unable to get transportation until the next morning, the band agrees to stay overnight at a local restaurant run by Dina (Ronit Elkabetz), a free-spirited but lonely Israeli restaurateur who longs for companionship.

Eran Kolirin's A Band's Visit is the story of the small connections that bring people together. Israeli's submission as Best Foreign Film at the Oscars (rejected because much of its dialog is in English), it is about what some of us have lost in modern society – the ability to reach across cultural, political, and language barriers to connect with fellow human beings. Over the course of the evening, the Israelis and the Egyptians approach each other tentatively and little by little, the staid Egyptians open up to their Israeli hosts, finding some common ground exemplified in a spontaneous dinner table rendition of George Gershwin's "Summertime".

When the two groups begin to get to know each other, they find that beneath the language and cultural differences, they are simply people - full of joy and sadness, friendship and loneliness, connection and loss. Tewfiq (Sasson Gabal), the conductor of the Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra, is formal and rigid in his demeanor but is able to strike up a friendship with Dina (Ronit Elkabetz). After some awkward silences, the melancholy conductor reveals details of tragic losses in his family and how he feels that he is to blame. Another band member, Khaled (Saleh Bakri) decides to accompany local Papi (Shlomi Avraham) and his date to a roller skating rink. In a memorable scene, Khaled offers the socially backward Papi some instructions on courting his shy girl friend.

In another moving sequence, band member Simon (Kalifa Natour) plays a lovely but unfinished composition for the clarinet for Itzik (Rubi Moscovich) who tells him that he should end the piece, not with a traditional showy display but with what is there for him at the moment, "not sad, not happy, a small room, a lamp, a bed, a child sleeping, and tons of loneliness." A Band's Visit is a film about Israeli's and Arabs but without the usual backdrop of boundary disputes, the peace process, or the religious divide, even avoiding the clichés about how music is a universal language. It is a small film but wise in its understated depiction of humanity's common bonds, slow-paced but held together with a sensitive charm.

Really well done

[jimstevensvend · 10/10 · 23 November 2007]

A movie that should be getting lot more press.

Enjoyable and bit quirky to see the kinds of situations people get into, that are much like we may experience anywhere else in the world.

Others have laid out the plot well and nothing more needs to be said about how the story develops.

I found two scene in this movie the kind that one must remember, rather like the many one may recall from Bogart in Casablanca.

The exchange at the phone and the scenes at the skating rink are precious and very well acted.

This is a movie I recommend seeing and then putting into memory to come back and see again and again just for the pure pleasure of a well developed comedy.

What a surprisingly fab movie

[rob-1850 · 10/10 · 3 January 2008]

As a dedicated husband of a BAFTA voting member, we trawl through 100+ DVD's at this time of year. The Hollywood movies all blur into muchness, but then this film comes along without any fancy marketing blurb, no fancy box, just a DVD in a plastic sleeve. We put it in and said we would give it 10 minutes, and spent the next 100 minutes or so spellbound and laughing our socks off! The acting was simply wonderful, the comic situations and timing were redolent of "The Office", and the political analogies were intriguing, The soundtrack was the best of any 2007 movie imho. It gets our nomination for Best Film, Best Direction, Best Editing, Best Soundtrack, with further nominations for the "Dina" and "Tewfiq" actors plus a vote for others in the band in the supporting actor category.

Try to see it if you can!

an amusing, small detour on the highway of life

[Quinoa1984 · 7/10 · 2 March 2008]

The band, an group of eight Egyptians looking slightly stilted and uncomfortable but always professional, are dropped off at the Israeli airport, but there is no bus to drive them. They eventually get one, but it drops them off in the middle of nowhere. They walk to a local restaurant/dive that's about as empty as the rest of the small town - it's the wrong town, of course, as one letter was off in the name of the town of the band-mates inquired about. So it's time to stay overnight in this sleepy little desert town before things get straightened out to their destination.

With that simple premise, Eran Kolirin creates an atmosphere that seems like the awkward, piercingly funny but "low-key" (in other words not overly dramatic) characters in a Jarmusch film, and despite the 'small' nature of the story, that there isn't very much to go in its 80 minute running time, a lot can be explored through interaction. This is probably not a 'great' film, but it is a great example for those skeptical that an Israeli film has to have some political context or subtext or whatever. The only scene that has the hint of unease between Israel and Arab is an already warm, strange scene at a dinner table where an Israeli man recollects singing "Summertime" as everyone at the table joins in. There are looks exchanged here and there, but nothing to suggest unrest of the expected sort. This story could take place in just about anywhere.

By aiming things towards the little details of people relating on terms of friendly interaction, of the light dances of affection like between the boy who "hears the sea" and the "gloomy girl" at the skating rink (probably the single funniest scene without a word spoken, all movement), the first-time director creates a little play on people who live and/or work in a marginalized part of the world. That doesn't mean they're poor or ignorant, far from it. But it's a sweet view into people we otherwise wouldn't know much about (after all, who makes light, wise comedies on the misadventures of a police band from Egypt?) The performances are endearing, the music has the ring of not taking much too seriously, and melodrama is kept at a low (if not, in the underlying sense, melancholy). Only a few scenes (like the running story strand of the officer and the other guy waiting at the pay phone) fall sort of flat based on the tone already sent.

You Speak. You Don't Speak

[ferguson-6 · 8/10 · 2 March 2008]

Greetings again from the darkness. Stellar film from rising star, Israeli filmmaker Eran Kolirin. This film offers the beautifully delivered message that regardless of our culture, we all want to be connected to another person. Other than the language we speak, we really aren't so dissimilar.

The Egyptian Police Orchestra is stranded on their way to play at the opening of an Arab Culture Center. The language barrier causes them to be stuck in a one-horse town with a similar type name. What follows is a touching story and terrific film-making. So much is communicated with so few words.

There are three of four amazing scenes. My favorite is probably the funniest in the film. At the roller rink, one of the band members assists an awkward local with the proper technique in consoling a girl whose feelings he has hurt. It is funny and touching and moving and insightful all at once. The band leader's scenes with Dena, the beautiful and lonely restaurateur who takes the band in for the evening, are so emotional and sincere that I kept wanting to scream at them both! Just great stuff.

I look forward to more from Eran Kolirin and it is very sad that this film was disqualified in the Foreign Language category due to the determination that too much English was used. Still, it doesn't change the fact that this is a terrific movie and story.

Egyptian-Israeli relations

[stensson · 7/10 · 6 January 2008]

This little police orchestra from Egypt arrives in Israel and gets lost. They end up in the most boring village you've ever seen. On the surface. Soon different kinds of relations starts, between different kinds of people. We are all individuals.

This is not just a small-talk tale about the fruitful meeting between two cultures and two powers. It's also about loneliness and how people cope with it. There's the loneliness from being old, the loneliness from being sexually outspoken, the loneliness from being retarded when it comes to passion. It's both a very sad and hopeful movie.

Perhaps the main theme is music and the consolation which is possible from it.

The Band's Visit is pure magic

[iandedobbeleer · 8/10 · 22 October 2007]

Eran Kolirin is a name to watch out for. This film maker is simply brilliant. In the band's visit he tells a quite simple story, but not without pulling a trick here and there and believe me, he's not a one trick pony. Actor performances are subdued and very truthful making the movie a story of unpersued dreams that goes straight to the heart. It's warm melancholy mood never gets heavy or painful cause it's countered so wittily with scenes that make you smile from ear to ear. To top it all off there's well chosen music, honest photography and clever camera direction. The Band's visit tells of a classic mix-up, but without ever being cheap.

All about loneliness, and even optimistic in a low-key way

[Terrell-4 · 7/10 · 24 March 2008]

This low-key, seemingly slow-moving Israeli movie offers a lot to those willing to sit still for a while. The Band's Visit (Bikur Ha-Tizmoret) is something of an uncomplicated, good- natured story, but scratch the surface of all those awkward people-getting-to-know people moments and there's a poignant look at loneliness.

The eight members of the Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra have arrived in Israel from Egypt to play at the opening ceremony of an Arab cultural center. But they mix-up the name of the city, get on the wrong bus, and wind up in a small Israeli town that seems plunked in the middle of desolation...all wind and dust, with a huge apartment complex not far away. (The real town is Yeruham, population 9,000, in the Negev desert. I doubt if the place gets many tourists, or will after this movie.)

The band is led by Tawfiq Zacharya (Sasson Gabai), a serious, strict, middle-aged man who speaks halting English. When the bus that dropped them off departs, the eight men stand holding their instruments and looking uncomfortable in their powder blue uniforms. Tawfiq finally walks across the highway to a small café where two idlers sit watching him. He introduces himself to the proprietor, Dina (Ronit Elkabetz), fortyish, confident, good-looking and so bored with her life that she sees these Egyptians as something of a challenge. They're in the wrong town, there's no hotel and there's no bus until the morning, so she feeds them and arranges for the band members to stay with some of the town's residents. She takes in Tawfiq and the band's young violinist and trumpet player, the tall and smooth Haled (Saleh Bakri). For the rest of the night we watch as coffee is sipped, dinners are eaten, awkward conversations take place (and some not so friendly ones) and liquor is sipped. Haled goes to a roller skating rink with two young Israeli guys and their dates and winds up showing the very inexperienced one how to comfort a weeping girl. Mostly, we get to know Dina and Tawfiq...Dina, with a careless life when she was younger, still something of a rebel against the conventions and boredom of the town; Tawfiq, reserved and dignified, who holds silently the knowledge of a terrible mistake he made before he was widowed. We're there as they share tentatively some personal history.

No, love doesn't blossom and we don't walk away thinking that if only people could get to know each other all the Israeli-Arab problems could be solved. We might be moved and entertained, in a gentle way, as some tentative friendliness arises, but more than anything we're touched by the loneliness, for different reasons, that Tawfiq and Dina carry around with them. Haled winds up helping each of them in very different ways, but without being aware of it. He's just a young guy who plays the violin and horn, loves Chet Baker, is something of a rebel and admires good-looking women.

When the bus comes by the next morning and the band prepares to board, we get the strong feeling that Dina and Tawfiq will remember their encounter, and might even be happier for it.

The Band Visit , Original Comedy

[shmulik-cohen · 9/10 · 19 October 2007]

Very Original and most enjoyable Comedy. The Band from Alexandrian Police comes to Israel and goes to Beit Tiqva instead of Petah Tiqva by mistake. Sasson Gabai and Ronit Elkabetz play an excellent comedy with a human touch. Beit Hatiqva is a far out town that has one bus a day in the desert. The Residents are originally from Arab Countries and Culture. High Unemployment and Boredem in this far out town. Sasson Gabai plays Tawfik the Band Leader. Sasson is not Egyptian but manages to play the part including small gestures of Middle Class Egyptian Officers. The Rest of the cast are good too. All though the film is very funny there are hints to serious issues. In our fast paced emerging market Society, People are left behind. The Band is a good Old Fashioned Band. Beit Hatiqva is a forgotten town like many in Israel. Most of the movie is in Arabic and English and little Hebrew. Go and see this Human Comedy.

Excellent! The characters are quite real

[rainyday1230 · 28 July 2011]

What I got from this movie is that deep down, in the most basic ways we are all the same. I am a Westerner from Texas, but I identified with several of the characters. Yes, I'm a musician, but not for those reasons do I identify but more for the human condition parts. I also liked the starkness of the remote village. I find that romantic. It really did make me feel like I was there. It breaks my heart to think that Egypt and Israel may again become mortal enemies after just a couple of generations. Just when maybe things were getting better between these countries and their citizens. Neither music nor love can erase the evil that is hate.

A good drama with a few funny moments

[cindyjanmarcia · 7/10 · 18 August 2008]

The Band's Visit started slow, long lingering shots that are seen so often in indie films. There isn't a lot of plot in this film. It's mostly about how the characters interact with each other and about their deep psychological problems. There are some funny, awkward quirky moments as seen in so many indie films these days. The best part about the film is the awkward tension between Dina and Tawfiq. It's similar to The Visitor and Once, two movies where the romantic leads have trouble making the connection due to different circumstances. I was told that this film was a comedy and although it was not as funny as I had expected, it's still a worthwhile little film with some very good acting.

As arid as the panorama shown behind: Dry sand and hot wind.

[davidtraversa-1 · 1/10 · 17 June 2011]

So, this is "The Band's Visit"..., well, let me tell you: You can have it. Let's start from the beginning: I saw it wearing headphones, and it was very strange to see these uniformed group of musicians walking a block away from camera, but hearing their heavy steps on the pavement making the same noise as the dinosaurs (or whatever their name is) that were walking in Jurassic Park: Every step sounded like if Godzilla was walking behind my back!! the same with the traffic noise, it was augmented about a thousand times sounding like the worst Kansas tornado behind my screen monitor.

Now about the directing: Every scene is unnecessarily too long and every question issued by one of the actors takes the recipient about 10-20 seconds to answer, and this procedure is maintained throughout the whole film, and if they are not barely talking (none of them seems to be too fluent in the difficult art of conversation), then the long immovable takes become quite unbearable.

Very-very irritating. The script is gray and unmemorable, dull, like all the characters save the woman owner of the Israeli restaurant, the only character with life in it, the rest are kind of zombies walking from left to right on the screen and then from right to left, till the end of the movie.

All the men portrayed in this movie are as dumb as they come, and again, only the restaurant owner shows some intelligence in her eyes and liveliness in her manners.

How can people be so dull!!!

Are they saying in this movie that all policemen are that dumb and pathetic? well, I don't care a hoot, a total waste of time, of money, of everything (and now I have to go to the video store to return this copy).

An enjoyable film

[RKBlumenau · 8/10 · 26 October 2007]

An Egyptian Police Band has been engaged to perform at an Arab Cultural Centre in Petah Tikvah. They descend from their bus, resplendent in their blue uniforms and rather stiff and ill at ease to be in Israel. It turns out that their bus has deposited them just outside Beith Ha-Tikvah, in the middle of nowhere, and there is no one to receive them. Beith Ha-Tikvah not only has no Cultural Arab Centre, but according to Dina (a young Israeli woman stuck there) not much culture of any kind, nor, for that matter, a hotel where they can stay until the next bus out on the following day. Dina arranges for them to stay the night in various local homes. The Egyptians are (with the exception of one member of the band) embarrassed and painfully polite, and the rest of the film shows mainly how Dina (mainly) tries and eventually succeeds in getting them, and especially their captain to relax a little. I think the film, getting a lot of laughs out of pointing up the contrast between the relaxed Israelis and the constrained Egyptians, is rather patronizing towards the Egyptians - one can just imagine how an Israeli film maker would portray an Israeli band if the roles were reversed! - but, other than that, the heart of the film is in the right place, aiming to show their common humanity and their common suffering (and the suffering of the Egyptian captain and the Israeli girl have NOT been caused by politics or war, but have to do with their private lives.) And, as a contrast to the embarrassed Egyptians, there is also a young inhibited Israeli boy who has to be taught by the one relaxed Egyptian how to approach a girl. The film is amusing, sometimes touching, sometimes a little sentimental. The performances of Ronit Elkabetz as Dina and Sasson Gabbai as the Egyptian captain are superb.

The bearable lightness of being

[ssg7 · 10/10 · 10 February 2008]

In this surprising comedy, a blue costumed Egyptian Police orchestra gets misrouted in Israel on the way to play at the opening of an Arab cultural center in Petah Tikvah. They land in a tiny desert town, where Dina, an Israeli cafe owner, (played by a strikingly smoky voiced Ronet Elkabetz), disburses the eight musicians overnight among her bored regulars until tomorrow's bus comes. Of course, the conductor, Sasson Gabai, stays with her.

Not much of a plot really, but the intelligence and composition of the film makes what I've seen from Hollywood lately seem like kindergarten. Israeli Dina disemboweling a watermelon for her two Egyptian guests, a morose Egyptian-Israeli after dinner men's chorus of "Summertime" from Porgy and Bess, romance at the Israeli roller-skate discotheque, two men talking by a sleeping child in the bedroom of a failing marriage -- each scene saved from treacle by the film maker's wit and pacing.

As stereotypes and the enmity of decades fall by the wayside, Egyptians and Israelis alike endure difficulties of communication, autonomy, leadership, relationship, and isolation. No moment is rushed. No character trivialized. No irony ignored. No soundtrack tells us what to feel.

Music and sounds in this film are source only. The band's music, arising as the credits roll, is glorious - the key, in fact, to something each of us, or them, so desperately needs: joy! The film is so well crafted my enjoyment of it was effortless. It seems an enormous amount of thought, care, and love went into "The Band's Visit". And this is precisely the message, told with enough humor to keep it fresh. Ordinary individuals encountering each other with honesty, respect, and the gifts of art, music and laughter -- how else to breach the gulf between these two, or any two, cultures.

Here we Have no Culture... Coffee?

[MacAindrais · 15 October 2008]

The Band's Visit (2008) ****

What a charming little film this is. Why is it that foreign comedies seem to be so deftly able to manage intelligence, insight, drama and politics so thoughtfully and naturally? The Band's Visit takes a topic that could have been ripe for violence, but turns it into a tale spun of friendship and our common humanity.

The film is set in a middle of nowhere Israeli desert town. An Arab police orchestra from Egypt has traveled here by mistake, looking for a town with an almost identical name where they are to play at the opening of an Arab cultural centre. When they arrive in the small town, he's greeted with the news that there is no Arab culture here; "no Israeli culture either, no culture at all!"

As the group stands in their bright blue suits with their instruments at their feet, they negotiate a deal to get something to eat at the local diner, owned by Dina. After chatting with the bands leader, Tawfiq, she offers to set them up for the night - some at the diner, some with the two men who seem to do nothing but sit outside the diner, and some with her.

It's obvious that she is attracted to the older Tawfiq. She invites him to come with her. He takes along Khaled, the young band member who lollygags and womanizes. That night the band goes with their hosts, and spend the night doing various things. One group, lead by the band's second in command, who has written a concerto but never finished it, eats dinner with an Israeli family. There are tensions that are mostly calmed through a common denominator - song. One member waits for a call on the payphone from the embassy, a phone also stalked by a young man waiting for a call from his girlfriend - How he shoes his annoyance when the phone is in use is quite funny. Khaled goes with a young shy Israeli on a double date as the fifth wheel. He shows him how to charm his date, as the three sit on a bench. It one of the films most charming scenes. Elsewhere, Tawfiq and Dina go out and simply chat. She asks him about his life, which he only slowly and reluctantly details.

Things don't go the way we might expect in a more traditional story, but what we're left with is far more satisfying. The film is shot in muted tones, often with shots set up simply for their photographic value. Take for example the numerous shots of the Orchestra lined up in their sky blue suits, or a moment when Tawfiq, Dina, and Khaled return to her apartment for the night where upon entering all three stop and look forward for a few seconds. These shots have no value other than aesthetic reflection, but they work perfectly. That director Kolirin makes this work is a credit to his daring.

The Band's Visit is a incredibly charming film, and a pure delight to watch. Comedy goes from slapstick to subtlety without notice, and to drama and sadness just as easily and back again. Sure we don't get what the usual audience would want out of the final story, but it matters not at all. The pay off in this film is so thoughtful, and so touchingly done, what seemed preferable before seems cheap now. This is a great movie.

Way too fantastical to make any meaningful contribution

[alyoucha · 6/10 · 20 December 2012]

I take the point that this is not a political film, that it's about interaction on a human level. A story that basically could have taken place in any imaginary place, about a band visit from a neighbouring country - maybe USA and Mexico.

Just not Israel and Egypt! For the film to be any positive contribution to relations it really needed to include some element of realism.

For example I find it completely non-credible that a group of 8 Egyptian men (of any background) would happily spend the night with Israeli families, without at least ONE of them raising objections and bringing up the fact that the 2 countries are long-time enemies and that this is tantamount to treason! I speak as an Egyptian by the way, who would gladly interact with Israelis (I assume good-will unless the individual proves otherwise). I can't speak of the Israeli population of the small town, but something tells me that there too, someone would have raised objections, expressed disgust, anger..

To me, what the film lacked, despite its beauty, is any kind of friction. It just smoothed over long existing tensions as if they never existed. In its effort to emphasize the common humaneness, it sidestepped conflicts, like someone who refuses to look the problem in the eye. You don't tackle a problem by ignoring it exists. I'm sure there was a clever way that this could have been approached while still maintaining the film's spirit.

The Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra goes on tour

[jotix100 · 8/10 · 29 March 2008]

We know there is going to be trouble for the arriving members of the Egyptian orchestra, when they are not met at the airport. To make matters worse, they pile into a bus that takes them to a place, so isolated, that for all practical purposes they have gone to another planet. The Israeli town is in the Negev and has little life on its own.

The orchestra's leader, the proper Tawfiq, goes to get help when they get off the bus. The only thing in sight is Dina's cafe, where nothing seems to happen. Dina, who is skeptical at first, realizes the plight of these men, stranded until the next day in that isolated spot with practically no money, decides to feed them soup and bread. Dina, who is a lonely woman who has seen better days, decides to take Tawfiq and Haled to her own home and bullies two men that hang out in her cafe to take the others to their relatives.

Dina, after taking the men to her own small apartment, decides to take the men out to a small eatery. As she gets to know them, she begins to develop a fondness for the older musician, who also feels the attraction, but he is too polite to do anything about it. Following the night in the small town we watch as the band walks out in formation to where they will be picked up.

Eran Kolinn, the writer and director of "Tbe Band's Visit", created an intimate portrait of lonely people coming together because of circumstances beyond their control. There is also an undercurrent message about how bitter enemies can come together when they really know each other. Talking seems to dispel old fears since we all are the same no matter where.

The film is enhanced by the quiet dignity of Sasson Gabai, who plays the band's director. He plays Tawfiq with such flair that he wins us from the start. Ronit Elkabetz is seen as Dina, the woman of a certain age, now stuck in that forsaken place. She lives a lonely existence in that forsaken place that she is grateful for the distraction of the stranded musicians and sees a possibility of some bliss even if it's short-lived.

Eran Kolinn is a talent that will go to bigger and better things because he shows he can do it, judging from his work in this winning film.

Worth watching but flawed

[Brim_and_Brood · 7/10 · 20 January 2010]

Bikur Ha-Tizmoret is an Israeli/Arab film which tells the story of a classical Arab police music band from Alexandria which visits Israel for a performance. The band ends up "in the middle of nowhere" because of a mix-up in the name of the place they ask to reach. The story then centres on certain band members and their interactions while they stay overnight with Israeli hosts.

To its credit the film manages to steer clear of any detail of politics, with the characters difficulties with each other emerging from cultural differences and a certain wariness of strangers. The writers do not insult us by trying to explain why the Egyptians and the Israelis have difficulty communicating despite their shared border and history. In one scene a band member covers a picture of Israeli tanks with his cap, since he finds it difficult to eat his meal while looking at the picture - which is as poignant as it needs to be.

The cinematography is good and the film does a great job at capturing the arid and unpopulated landscape, and the essential boredom of life in a small town. The music, when allowed to flow, is beautiful and authentic. I was hoping for more of it.

The performance of the actors is very good, and Sasson Gabai shines as the charge of the band. Ronit Elkabetz as Dina is a great choice, and pulls of the independent, rough-yet-gentle young woman very well. The writers realise that in one night people's natures will not change, and so there are no great revelations or big changes, rather the characters behave more or less how we'd expect them to.

In essence, Bikur Ha-Tizmoret is a comedy, a character study, and an exploration of people's behaviour in unusual circumstances. However it just doesn't quite pull any one of these off very well. Parts of the film which should be funny, laugh-out-loud type, are too predictable to work. A good example is the scene where Simon is helping Papi with the shy girl at the skating rink - it's just too obvious what the director is trying to achieve. There are other examples of heavy-handed direction. Characters walk in and off stage in a contrived manner. Too often I felt I was watching people make-believe.

Despite the criticisms I make, Bikur Ha-Tizmoret is still a good film, interesting and unique, and definitely worth watching.

Our view of their view of us

[Nozz · 8/10 · 19 October 2007]

With a strained formal demeanor and a face wrinkled with vulnerability, Sasson Gabai's bandleader is a direct descendant of Shaike Ophir's Policeman (Azulai) in the bittersweet Israeli movie of that name. This is not a bad ancestry to have, but for a character who is supposed to be Egyptian it's a little awkward. Today Egypt is a grumpy neighbor that has as little contact with Israel as possible, and Egyptians-- or anyone else-- could consider it presumptuous of us Israelis to bring out a movie about the reaction of an Egyptian orchestra to being stranded in Israel. Who are we to characterize them? But the movie was obviously made with an abundance of good will and the foreign press has been kind.

The Band's Visit was nominated Israel's candidate for the Foreign Film Oscar, but it had to be withdrawn because not enough of the dialogue was non-English. (Perhaps the most unrealistic aspect of the film, other than a public telephone that inexplicably operates for free, was everybody's fluency in English.)

Could have been better

[maximkong · 6/10 · 18 November 2012]

Sorry to say, I felt that the movie could have done a lot better. I mean, the movie has done essentially well by keeping things simple, naturally awkward/ funny and not revealing any complications, but given the potential sensitivities of the subject matter and the flaws of humanity that it is trying to convey, I was disappointed that the film has made a mockery out of the human mind because, even if they are simple-minded folks, people are eventually more complex and unpredictable unlike what was depicted in film.

The slow pace of the movie had somehow made the plot much easier to predict in my opinion. The Band's Visit could have easily elevated itself to my top list if the Director eliminated the unrealistic, almost fantasy-like sequences in certain scenes. Nevertheless, high ratings are still given due to the sheer message that people are quite alike and the need for togetherness regardless of circumstances.

Brilliant use of language, gorgeous film

[kathleen-pangan · 10/10 · 28 February 2008]

The Band's Visit has to be one of the most awesome movies I've seen this year. We start with the Alexandria Ceremonial Orchestra, which is pretty much a police orchestra. The Egyptian band is traveling to a town in Israel to celebrate the opening of an Arabic cultural center. Instead, however, they end up in the wrong town and there is no bus out of this desolate, culture-dead ghost town until the next day. So we follow the band for the day and see who they really are. There is the serious loner of a director, his number one follower who would like to conduct but is never allowed to and who wanted to write a concerto on his clarinet but never finished, and the playboy who is always hitting on the girls. And yet, they all have more to them and this is the interesting journey of discovery on which we are set.

This film is beautiful and absolutely astoundingly perfect in so many ways. Most obvious is the play on the play on language. Most of the Egyptian band members speak in Arabic, though some speak in broken or highly accented English, which becomes the only way of communicating with the Israelis. A restaurant owner in the forlorn Israeli town offers the band members lodging and convinces her regulars to offer them lodging as well. So the band gets split up, and from there we learn more about each person as well as the people who they are staying with, and their lives. There are awkward scenes and it seems there is not too much to say at times. But the dialogue is so perfect, maybe because everyone must carefully choose their words in order to communicate in the common English language. At the same time, there is the idea of listening to a foreign language and hearing music and understanding the meaning by sound, by a different kind of knowledge than fluency.

One of the more poignant parts of the film is when one of the Israeli restaurant regulars talks to the follower Egyptian orchestra guy who never finished his clarinet concerto. We stare at the happy wedding picture of the regular guy with his wife after a dinner that showed that their marriage is not a happy one. Additionally, it's the baby's room, and the baby is in front of the two men and there are toys everywhere. The two men awkwardly sit together in front of the crib, and then the Israeli guy tells the Egyptian clarinet player, "You know, maybe this I how your concerto ends. I mean… not a big end with trumpets and violins, maybe this is the finish. Just like that, suddenly. Not sad, not happy. Just, ah, a small room, a lamp, a bed, child sleeps, and… (pauses, gestures with hands, laughs out of embarrassment for taking long to think of the words) tons of loneliness." Later, we are with the director and the playboy. The director had just had a rather distant one-on-one time with the restaurant owner lady, and now the three of them are back at her flat. The playboy takes out his instrument. A lone trumpet plays. The director and the lady stare off. There are so many picturesque, just gorgeous and lovely scenes in this film. It is filled with the sorrowful knowledge of how life is and what you know will come by experience.

Finally, after the awkwardness, the silence and heartbreak, we see what this group can do. I sank back into my seat, now intimately familiar with every member of the orchestra, and see them come together and revel in the beauty of classical Arabic orchestral music. This film is simply gorgeous and delicious to watch, see and here. It is a breath-taking experience that makes you think, and one I highly recommend.

Encounters between strangers

[MikeyB1793 · 7/10 · 8 September 2009]

A very humane film about encounters between strangers - in this case an Egyptian band visiting in Israel. The film is slow paced but has its' rewards. It is not pretentious and each scene says no more than is meant.

Sometimes the scenes capture well the human predicament as the characters open up to each other and reveal there inner most thoughts. Also there is an underlying humour at times, but this is offset by the dry bleakness of the setting. It is filmed in a rather dull city as the characters who live there attest to.

This film is very character oriented and the plot is secondary – nevertheless it keeps its' focus on the interactions. Ronit Elkabetz is indeed captivating as the restaurant owner.

Israeli cinema at its sentimental worst

[steven11111 · 1/10 · 1 February 2009]

I had extremely low expectations for this film, but even I failed to predict how nauseously sentimental, foolishly unrealistic, and poorly written it would be. All of the Israelis posting glowing reviews about this movie should be ashamed of themselves for praising such a low-quality product. I think according to those Israeli viewers, just because a movie is produced in Israel, it must be good. I'm originally from Israel but I will never hesitate to harshly criticize Israel's disgraceful cinematic efforts.

This movie must be classified as a total failure for several reasons. First, it is unabashedly sentimental and clichéd. You have already seen this type of movie many times before. A group of characters from a foreign country visit another country and guess what happens? They are transformed by their visit, and similarly transform those with whom they interact during their visit. This is the type of story that is dreamed up by a 12 year old or a C-grade screenwriter but actually has very little to do with real life.

Second, the characters are mere clichés and stock types and are not real at all. I didn't believe that a single character shown had anything in common with an actual human being. There is of course a rigidly serious Egyptian orchestra leader who develops an unfulfilled romance with a promiscuous, so-called "free spirited" Israeli restaurant owner. Then there is a socially awkward young Israeli boy who is of course tutored in the ways of girls by a fun-loving Egyptian youth. All of these sequences and scenes were so utterly detached from reality that I actually had to laugh. Essentially this movie does not contain even a trace of realism.

Finally, the writing is absolutely horrible. I frequently cringed when the scriptwriter invoked singing sequences in which characters sang songs out of nowhere in front of total strangers. Does anyone do that in real life? Of course no one does. The dialogue between the characters is completely artificial and not once did it seem remotely realistic.

I would give this movie a 0 out of 10 stars. Israel's filmmakers have shown once again that they are incapable of making a deep, insightful, or realistic film. There are only two excellent Israeli films that I know of: Late Marriage and The Syrian Bride. The Band's Visit, like so many other Israeli movies, is a disgraceful, sentimental production totally devoid of meaning.